The Estonian Academy of Arts hosted from October 4 to 6 Garage48 Future of Wood makeathon. Fred Mühls, second-year student of Environmental Technology and Management at TTK UAS, was part of the winning team LOCAL CO2, LOCAL OFFSET.

According to Fred Mühls, the winning project  deals with the sustainability and diligent utilization of Estonian forests. The jury valued highly the its impact to the environment and to real life.

“The problem we dealt with were the CO2 emissions of companies that are polluting the environment. We saw as a solution to absorb it in forests and by doing so help the environment to become cleaner. We created a system that rewards forest owners for not letting their forests to be clear-cut,” said Fred Mühls about their project that has by now grown into a start-up.

“We built a solution where businesses that cause CO2 emissions, can become CO2-neutral by buying carbon offset from local forest owners. The private forest owners can earn passive income while the value of the trees increases,” said Mühls.

The winning team LOCAL CO2, LOCAL OFFSET was awarded tickets to Latitude59 event in 2020. They also won the special prizes from Cleantech ForEst company and Tehnopol.